I won’t have many more days like today. For the past year or so, I have been mostly working out of my home office, which has given me a certain amount of freedom that I won’t have in the very near future. This week I am basically unemployed, having finished my final contract with Ryati last week. Next week I’ll be in San Francisco at Google IO. The week after that I will start a new job at Adobe. So, you can see, my days of total freedom combined with amazing weather are quite limited. It behooves me to use them wisely. That’s exactly what I did today.

I spent 3 or 4 hours yesterday working the tiller through about 4,000 square feet of garden in my back yard. It looks great, but it really wore out my arms and back. I also came away with two very inconveniently placed blisters – right in the fold between each thumb and index finger. By itself, that’s not much of a big deal, but it really makes it difficult to ride a bike, shift gears, brake, etc.

As promised on Monday, I ran today without walking. Unfortunately, I ran slower today than I did on Monday, but I’m still very happy with the result. I blame the slightly slower run on the fact that RunKeeper only has one setting for audio cues, which is just stupid. I *never* want audio cues for anything other than running, and I *always* want them when I run. Unfortunately, because of bad design, I am forced to go into settings before each activity and change the setting. Today I forgot to do that, so I had no audio cues once again. Oh well, like I said, I’m still happy with the end result.

29:33

It’s definitely time to add more distance to my runs. I’ll look into that when I get back from Google IO.

After running, I chugged 10 ounces of chocolate milk. Then I debated working in the garden again, but it didn’t stand a chance against my favorite option: biking. Charmaine challenged me to ride up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park and see if I could go up South Fork. When I got to Vivian Park, there was no way I was going up South Fork. The wind was howling down that canyon so hard that it nearly blew me off my bike as I rode past.

The wind was an interesting beast today. It was very gusty, and I’m talking about extreme gusts. One time, while riding down hill and pedaling, the wind hit me and brought me to a complete stop. I was dumbfounded. Of course, most the time the gusts came from the sides, which made me a little nervous, but sometimes the wind got behind me and gave me that push I needed to keep going up. After deciding not to turn or stop at Vivian Park, I thought I should try to ride up to Deer Creek dam. The wind was a good friend on the way up. It seemed to get behind me every time I really needed it. It kept building and getting stronger as I got closer to the top. I went sailing up and across the dam with a huge grin on my face, but then I realized a subtle problem with my plan. I was on a divided highway and couldn’t just turn around. I had to keep riding until there was a break in the divider. Luckily, that wasn’t all that far.

48.69 miles

The ride back down the canyon was very difficult. That strong wind that helped me up the canyon was still building. My speed going down was quite a bit slower than my speed going up. Think about that. Part of the reason for that was safety. When you’re riding into a serious headwind and a semi trailer blows past you, it sucks you in way more than normal. If that happens right when there’s a side gust, it’s not fun. It didn’t take too long to get back down, but my legs were toast. I had anticipated being able to rest on the way back down, but it just didn’t happen. I didn’t know how far I had gone, but I figured I should just get home and get some food. Other than that 10 ounces of chocolate milk, the only other thing I had eaten was a small bowl of cereal. I would have had more had I known what I was about to do. Oh well, I’m still very happy.

It may be 6 weeks late, but it seems to finally be warming up a bit. Today was another beautiful day. I had a great first 2 miles, but then I walked the second half of the hill on Ironwood. I think I walked for about a minute, which means I probably cost myself 20 to 40 seconds by walking. That was the difference between the time I earned, and what would have been a new record.

29:02

It is sort of interesting to me that I can walk and still get my second fastest time ever, but I’m committing to not walk again… at least until I add more distance to my loop. I seem to have all this energy left over when I’m done running. Today there was a great debate between working in the garden (it really needs it) or riding my bike. My bike won. But I think it’s definitely time to add some more distance to my runs.

Despite feeling like I had a lot of energy, my legs felt pretty tired when I tried to make them climb the hill in Alpine. I had set out thinking I might even go up Suncrest today, but after the slow climb into Alpine, I doubted I would do the Suncrest climb. When I actually got to Suncrest Drive, my legs just said no. I wasn’t going to let them off that easily though, so we headed down towards the lake. I thought I might try the loop I did the other day, but in reverse. Well, I’m terrible with navigation and directions. I got a little lost in Lehi, trying to find a way under the freeway. I did eventually find the same one I had used the other day, but then I went off some other way and wound up over by Saratoga Springs.

When I crossed the new Pioneer Crossing highway today, I noticed that it had “Bike Route” signs. I decided to try it on my way back from Saratoga. I liked it a lot. Well, I stopped liking it when it dropped me onto US-89 in American Fork, but the traffic was light, so it wasn’t too big of a deal this time. Once I found Center Street in American Fork, I was back on my home turf. I love taking that road up to the cemetery and then jumping over to the Alpine Highway, which also has a great bike lane. There was a little bit of wind coming out of the canyon as I headed towards the final hill, but there was no wind going up the last big hill. I was still slow. My legs were pretty burned up by then, but it wasn’t too bad.

32.99 miles

I only wish my legs had more juice so I could have stayed out longer. It was that good.